Can you forgive her trollope synopsis

This tidy arrangement seems final. Trollope shows us, unmistakably, how very far from satisfied a spirited girl may be with a good but insensitive husband, when the sexual side of such an arrangement is less happy than it should be. In putting this predicament unambiguously to a conventional Victorian audience, he was walking on dangerous ground.

He did it brilliantly. Of Can You Forgive Her? I cannot speak with too great affection, though I do not know that of itself it did very much to increase my reputation. As regards the story, it was formed chiefly on that of the play The humourous characters, which are also taken from the play But that which endears the book to me is the first presentation which I made in it of Plantagenet Palliser, with his wife, Lady Glencora.

Back to books and characters After the conclusion of a stormy engagement with her reckless and selfish cousin George , Alice Vavasor , a young woman with an independent fortune, engaged herself to a country gentleman, John Grey.

Reprinted by permissions of Princeton University Press. Alice, a relatively poor upper-class woman in Victorian England, breaks off her engagement to her cousin George because he is too wild and accepts a marriage proposal from John Grey, a talented but unambitious gentleman. However, her close friend and George's sister Kate persuades Alice to transfer her affections back to George.

Then there is middle-aged rich widow Mrs. Greenow, the aunt of Alice and Kate. Her suitors are the well-off farmer Cheeseacres and disreputable but dashing Captain Bellfield.

Finally, there is fabulously wealthy, young, beautiful heiress Lady Glencora M'Cluskie. She has become enamoured of the utterly irresponsible Burgo Fitzgerald, but her stern guardians pressure her into marrying Plantagenet Palliser, the heir to a dukedom and an earnest, hardworking politician.

George, eager to better himself, borrows money from Alice to run for Parliament a second time. John Grey hasn't given up, and with the assistance of Alice's father, secretly supplies the money himself.